Hilarious satire on protectionism from Frédéric Bastiat, French economist, written in 1845. This is from back when “libertarianism” was known simply as “liberalism.”

A PETITION From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.
…
We are suffering from […]

Now I am going to pitch my new show for some Big Ass network. It’s called, “My Fucking Head is a Supernova,” and it’s about this guy (you could say it’s semi-autobiographical) that has these awesome powers, perhaps caused by some unknown event in the past, an accident in the laboratory with giant magnets, that […]

It’s always with mixed emotions and skepticism that I watch Hollywood adaptations of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick’s work come into existence. The latest, Next, based on the short story “The Golden Man,” doesn’t look too promising by the trailer. But then again, Nick Cage promises that the film delivers a PKD mind-fuck. Oh golly. […]

Fred Kaplan on recent remarks from the Bush administration:
4. “George Washington’s long struggle for freedom has also inspired generations of Americans to stand for freedom in their own time. Today, we’re fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life.”
On Feb. 19, to celebrate George Washington’s birthday, President […]

Douglas Feith, former underling-bitch of Donald Rumsfeld, is vehemently defending the work of his Office of Special Plans, a Defense Department policy wonk agency that is widely known to have contradicted CIA intelligence assessments with it’s own, uh, special reality. The recent Pentagon Inspector General’s report is damning, but little more than a hand-slap […]

Researching a potential Chernobyl disaster vacation I came across more pictures this time, along with very haunting graffiti that has gone up, apparently for the 20th anniversary last April, silhouettes of children playing and other spooky but insanely poignant images. There are pictures of the abandoned town of Pripyat, and the graffiti, both on the […]

Yesterday, browsing through the philosophy section in a bookstore, I noticed some peculiar titles: Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer , and The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless. I knew that these pop-culture philosophy hybrid instructional books had become […]

I’m not sure what to make of this whole AEI melodrama. Are research groups and “think tanks” just platforms for sophistry? Do we expect them to pay for meaningful research that supports both sides of an issue? I don’t think so. I agree mostly with Jonathan Adler on this one, as I just don’t […]

Chuck Norris, perhaps the biggest GOP celebrity-clown since Ted Nugent, filled in for Hannity on Fox News the other night. Could it be that Fox is forsaking all appearances of responsible journalism for self-parodying performance art? The joke could be on us.
All I can say about Chuck’s website is that all websites are better with […]

The Word of the Day for January 30 is:
katzenjammer \KAT-zun-jam-er\ noun
*1 : hangover
2 : distress
3 : a discordant clamor
Example sentence:
The morning after the wedding, Pamela woke up with a blinding katzenjammer.